Good news:

This IS good news. It's actually much better than the New York Times is reporting it as. Something often forgotten in the last 30 years of the Troubles is that British soldiers came into the north of Ireland in the 60s because the Protestant police force (and the local government) was mistreating Catholics so badly.

It's not just that Catholics see the police as aligned with the British (though they do), it's that to many Catholics, the police are worse than the British soldiers. After Bloody Sunday, Britain lost a lot of credibility in that regard, but at least in the small towns (ie not Belfast or Derry), the police are still less trusted than the paratroopers and sometimes even than the SAS (who, in my experience, really are giant assholes until you pull out an American passport. Then they are only giant assholes to your Irish friends).